Several years ago, I was in a business meeting at my employer, a big company, and the meeting room has a speakerphone for when people have to call in. But everyone who has to be in the meeting is present in the room. That’s when the speakerphone rings and I answer it.

Me: “Hello, [Big Company].”

Caller: “Is [Name] there?”

Me: “No, you must have the wrong number. You’ve reached an office at [Big Company].”

Caller: “No, but I want to speak to [Name].”

Me: “Really, there’s no one here by that name. You must have the wrong number.”

Caller: “But this is their number. I know it’s right.”

Me: “This is the number for [Big Company], not a private residence. Could you have entered the wrong number?”

Pause.

Caller: “YOU-ALL’S CONFUSING ME. GET OFF MAH PHONE!” *Click*

My colleagues laughed.

Colleague: “This could only happen to you.”

Me: “Let me tell you about a website where it happens to a lot of people…”

This story is from when my parents were first married. One night, my father had a craving for pork chops and asked my mother if she wanted him to make one for her, too. My mother declined, telling him that she disliked pork chops.

A while later, my mother was figuring out what she wanted to make for her own dinner when my father sat down at their table with a juicy, delicious pork chop cooked to perfection.

Mom: “What is that?!”

Dad: “A pork chop?”

Mom: “That’s not a pork chop! Pork chops look like shoe leather!”

And that was how my mother learned that the way her mother made pork chops — cooking them until they were essentially jerky — was neither the standard nor the ideal.

My boyfriend was hired as a manager for a local burger restaurant that had just opened. There were a lot of problems with how it was run that the owners would not allow him to fix.

The main issue was that the majority of the employees were the minor children and friends of the owners. They refused to do their jobs, and if [Boyfriend] tried to teach or instruct, they would complain and he would end up in trouble.

On top of that, they would often call out just because something better came up. The owners expected [Boyfriend] to pick up all shifts for no-show employees. He was contracted to work forty-five hours a week but ended up closer to seventy-five.

He opened one day and got this call an hour after his shift ended.

Owner: “I need you to come back in tonight to close. [Only Adult Employee] called in sick, and we need someone over eighteen there.”

Boyfriend: “I’m sorry, I can’t tonight. It’s Tuesday. I told you when you hired me that I’m only available to open Tuesdays since it’s date night, and I have canceled on [My Name] for the last three weeks. 

Owner: “[My Name] will understand. You need to come in.”

Boyfriend: “No, I have not had a day off in over a month. [My Name] has been waiting forever to see a movie, and it’s being taken out of the theaters next week. I will not cancel on her again. I have come in early or worked late every day for the last three weeks. I will not be in tonight. You or [Owner’s Husband] will need to fill in.”

Owner: “Well, fine. Be that way.”

[Boyfriend] thought that was the end of things, and we went out and had a lovely evening.

The next day when [Boyfriend] went in, [Adult Employee] and [Owner] were there.

Boyfriend: “[Adult Employee], how are you feeling? I know you called in sick yesterday.”

Adult Employee: “Oh, I’m fine. I just forgot I was working and was too stoned to come in.”

Boyfriend: “Okay. I didn’t know you were scheduled today. Did someone call off?”

Adult Employee: “I don’t know. [Owner] just called this morning and said she was redoing the schedule and asked if I could pick up a few shifts.”

Hearing this, [Boyfriend] headed to the back where [Owner] was and glanced at the schedule. He had been removed from all except the closing shifts on Friday and Saturday for an entire month.

Boyfriend: “What the f***? Why am I taken off the schedule? I have a family to support.”

Owner: “You didn’t f****** care about that last night. If you don’t want to work when I call you, you don’t have to work at all.”

Boyfriend: “So, since I didn’t want to come in on a night that I was not available to cover a shift for someone that just admitted that he just got stoned and forgot he was working, I’m taken off the schedule, and he is given a majority of my hours.”

Owner: “Well, this should teach you how to prioritize your life. You’re the manager. It’s your job to be available, and from now on, you’ll think about this when I call you to come in.”

Boyfriend: “You’re right. I do need to reprioritize. F*** you; I quit. Have fun covering every Friday and Saturday because none of the lazy brats you have hired are going to do it.”

The next week, [Boyfriend] got a new job as a bartender making more money in half the number of hours. The icing on the cake was what we found out later: when customers at the restaurant asked where [Boyfriend] was, the owners insinuated that they had fired him for stealing… only for the manager they replaced him with to rob them blind, including their car, four months later. It forced them to close.

I work in a flower shop. A little after we open for the day, around 9:30, I received an order to be delivered to a funeral from a wire service. I had other orders for that funeral that I have already delivered, and I knew that they had to be delivered before 9:00 am this morning, as per the request of the funeral home. I refuse the order. Then, I have the following conversation over messages from said company.

Me: “Too late for delivery. Funeral needed to be delivered by 9:00 am.”

At 9:45 am:

Wire Service: “Our records state that the funeral is at 12:00. Proceed with delivery for this order.”

Me: “The visitation starts at 10:00 am; the funeral home is a half-hour away, plus the time it would take to assemble the order makes it impossible to get there in time. If you want this delivered, I need a home address for the family.”

I once again refuse the order.

At 11:30 am:

Wire Service: “We told our customer it would be there for the service. Proceed with delivery.”

Me: “No, you’re not the ones that get blamed for being late. We are. I will not take it.”

The wire service begins to resend the order every thirty to forty-five minutes. Each time, I refuse it, growing more frustrated that they are wasting my time and printer paper every time they resend the order.

Finally, around 2:00 pm, I turn off the order service, blocking all orders from coming in for the day just to get them to stop… only for them to start again the next morning.

Me: “Stop sending this order. The funeral was yesterday. If your customer wants something delivered, they need to call us directly with a home address.”

Rinse and repeat, with them sending the same order over and over to be delivered to the funeral home until I once again turn off the wire service in the afternoon…. only to get the same order the next morning.

Me: “STOP SENDING THIS ORDER! THE FUNERAL IS OVER! I WILL NOT TAKE IT TO THE FUNERAL HOME WHEN THE FUNERAL WAS TWO DAYS AGO!”

I call the company that manages the ordering system, but they can’t help me with getting them to stop other than what I have been doing or blocking them from our system completely. While it is tempting to do so, they account for about 25% of our monthly sales.

The wire service then sends the order back three times that day before sending this message with it.

Wire Service: “How much extra money do you need to get this order delivered?”

I put in the maximum amount it will allow me to enter.

Me: “$999,999,999,999 — possibly more since the funeral is over and I am just unsure how much it will cost to build a time machine, but send the initial funds and I’ll let you know when I need more.”

With that, they finally stopped sending that order, but unfortunately, I never got the money I requested.

At the end of my first year of college, my mother and grandfather pitch in to help me move home. When my grandfather asks if he needs to bring anything, like boxes, I request that he bring a small cooler.

However, when he gets there on move-out day, he finds that my minifridge is completely empty and has been propped open to defrost since the previous evening in preparation for moving.

Grandpa: “I’m sorry, I’m confused. Do you still need the cooler?”

Me: “Yeah, just not for the fridge stuff. I’ll fill up the cooler just before we leave.”

Grandpa: *Pauses* “All right, then.”

After we’d loaded most of my stuff, I grabbed the cooler and headed to the little campus food store across the way. A few minutes later, I emerged with the cooler, which was now filled with… eleven pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

My university has a sort of debit card system for food items, and I hadn’t spent too much over the course of the year, so I had about $76 of nonrefundable money that was about to expire. The ice cream pints were one of the most expensive things in the store, so it was a great way to get rid of that extra money.

My family was very happy to have a freezer drawer full of high-quality ice cream, and my grandfather still talks about the cooler with eleven pints of ice cream.